Unable to add color to text
Try creating a material.

Blender internal:


Create a material in Properties > Materials panel:


To simply add some color, you probably want to set the Diffuse color instead of the object color:




Object color only affects the render when enabled in Material > Options:



Object color is used to add some color variance per object without adding new materials.

Cycles:

AFAIK, Object color is not used at all in cycles.

Render:

To give an object a color in the render for cycles:


Create a new material in the Materials panel by pressing Add new:



This will automatically add a Diffuse shader.
Adjust the Color input of the diffuse shader:




Viewport:

To give the object a color in the 3D view set the Viewport color in Properties > Materials > Settings > Viewport color:



Note that the Viewport color is separate from the colors defined in the material which will appear when rendered. (It will only affect the 3D view)